Catalog backup problem 1

[andrewfr]

Hi

We have NetBackup 4.5 and I am trying to backup the catalog to a different server.

At present it just backs up to the local hard drive which isn't ideal if there is a hardware failure. I have tried (in the GUI NetBackup Admin Console) to get media 2 to backup to one of our Novell servers. I have put the Novell client on the backup server and log on as the admin user. I have explicitly given the user rights (even though I shouldn't need to do this) to the folder where I want the catalog to back up to. I get an error 35 - Cannot make a required directory - it gives me a list of possible reasons why it didn't work but I have checked and none of these apply.

Has anyone managed to do this? Any suggestions gratefully received.

 

[Vela]

We have NetBackup 4.5 and I am trying to backup the catalog to a different server.

Do you mean restore the catalog to a different server?

 

[andrewfr]

No, I do mean to backup to a different server then I have an extra copy of the catalog in the event of a disaster. This will allow me to have our standby server up and running and controlling the robot quickly.

 

[comtec17]

Why dont you try backing up to a network drive?

 

[andrewfr]

Just back after the Bank Holiday.

I'm trying to back up to a network drive, all of those are on the Novell server which is why I put the Novell client on.

 

[andrewfr]

Can this not be done then? I would have thought that it was desirable to be able to backup the catalog to a network drive.

 

[Vela]

This is possible but can be difficult since the backup catalog references the backup servers name everywhere. You would have to name the failover server to the same name and IP address so that all of your connections would still work.

By simply moving your catalog over to another server will not allow you to bring it up as the master server, quickly...

What we did was use snapshot technology to "snap" our netbackup catalog, 980G daily so that we can recover. We also run a catalog backup daily and I run file system backups on the master server daily as well.

Ryan

 

[comtec17]

980GB catalog!!!!

 

[andrewfr]

Thanks for the response Ryan.

When we changed the server earlier this year we just took a ghost image of the old one and put it onto the new one and were up and running very soon. We have an identical server ready to go in the event of a disaster which has already got the image on, the only thing which would need to be updated would be the catalog. We have thought about doing a copy of the catalog daily to this standby server but thought that it would be a good idea to back it up to a network drive to give us even more protection.

 

[Vela]

Interesting..we've done this...I had to restore data to multiple 500G USB hardrives before, for a "project" that were connected to somebodys workstation, in which I made the workstation a netbackup client and it worked perfect after some fiddling around..

You'll need to make the network drive the destination then restore the catalog to it from tape.

Am I on the right track?


Ryan

 

[andrewfr]

You're not far off.

Our main network is Novell which has all the mapped network drives. These are all backed up to the backup tape library which is controlled by a Win2000 server. It is this one which has the catalog on in the C:\CATBAK folder. I have installed the NetWare client on the Win2000 server and it can see and has full rights to the Novell network drive I am trying to save the catalog to.

After doing a bit of searching on the Veritas site I did find something which leads me to think that it need to log on with a Windows account to the Novell server.

"Write permissions to the mapped share are required. While the logged-on user may have permissions to the mapped share, NetBackup does not use this security context for access to the mapped share. Instead, NetBackup accesses the network resource with the account that the NetBackup Client Service uses to authenticate itself. By default this account is the local system account which has no ability to access network resources, including mapped network shares."

I just need to get my head around this and maybe I can get it working.